| A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
All men by nature desire to know.
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not. He raiseth his head like a tower on a hill, and the arrows of fortune drop at his feet. In the instant of danger, the courage of his heart sustaineth him; and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Bad men are full of repentance. Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
Change in all things is sweet.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Education is the best provision for old age.
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Friendship is essentially a partnership.
Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy. Happiness depends upon ourselves.
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Homer has taught all other poets the are of telling lies skillfully.
Hope is a waking dream.
Hope is the dream of a waking man. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost. |
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.
In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Most people would rather give than get affection.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Nature does nothing uselessly.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye. No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty - excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable -should persist after the beauty was gone. |
